Hello – I’m Gordon Tyerman and I’m taking over the Commissioner’s blog for this post. Why? I’m working with Tony on the National Surveillance Camera Strategy leading the strand looking at training.
I’m a former police officer and had responsibility for town centre CCTV design and development as well as the operation and management of schemes. For the past 16 years I’ve been heavily involved in delivering training to CCTV staff both in the UK and for overseas, to police forces and security companies. I’m also the current chair of the CCTV National Standards Forum so I’ve got a lot of experience in the sector, particularly in training which is why I was asked to lead the training strand.
The training strand takes into account all aspects of training and development for manufacturers, designers and installers of surveillance camera systems and of course the people operating those systems. By systems I mean CCTV, Automatic Number Plate Recognition Cameras, Body Worn Video, drones and so on. It ties in with all the other strands in the strategy which you can read about in this blog Tony wrote a few weeks ago.
It probably most closely aligns with the standards work strand. More and better training can only improve the competence of people in the industry and in turn help raise standards.
I’ve worked up a few high level objectives which are still a work in progress but can loosely be summarised as:
- Identify the different areas – manufacturers, designers, installers and so on – in which training can have an impact
- Establish contact with external groups/organisations who have membership made up of the list above such as the Association of Security Consultants
- Identify topics in conjunction with the groups above, that have a training need
- Create a database of suitable training for each of the groups providing a public system which the surveillance camera industry can access freely.
We’re still at an early stage of development for the strategy so these could change or adapt by the time Tony goes out for consultation on the strategy in the autumn. Over the coming months I’ll be speaking to my contacts in the industry to refine the objectives.
But if you were me what areas do you think we need to look at in terms of training?
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3 comments
Comment by John Honovich posted on
One important element of training for our industry is making sure training is up to date. The CCTV technology today is significantly different than even 5 years ago. As the underlying components improve (e.g., sensors, encoders, etc.), this changes what can and should be used for optimized CCTV.
Some examples of major technology changes that training should reflect include the expansion of true multi-imager WDR, 'super' low light image processing, integrated IR, higher resolution, muli-imagers, etc.
Most of the training out there is significantly dated and reflects what was true in 2006 or 2011 but not anymore.
Btw, we have a free book that we are happy to share for your training efforts here http://go.ipvm.com/cctv-cam
Comment by Gordon Tyerman posted on
Hi John, thanks for your note. I agree that the speed of technical development is rushing on at an incredible pace. However, not much public space CCTV can keep up with that. The knowledge you show in the booklet is very helpful to those working on high end development and camera maintenance and I will see how we can utilise some of your results into recommendations. Many thanks.
Comment by Gordon Tyerman posted on
May 5th; CCTV has now developed into more than a passive presence in our country. That means that the staff managing and operating have to be up to speed on the technical and legal information required to work effectively.
My questions to you are these:
What topics would you like to see operators and managers trained in? We have our own ideas, but there may be other areas where you would like specific detailed training to be covered.
How long would you expect an operator to undergo training?
Just a couple of line would give us a feel for your views! Many thanks.
Gordon